2013 end-of-year reviews – throws

Statisticians A Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava look back on the best throws performances of the year with Julin covering the men’s events and Jalava the women’s.

Men’s shot put

Glide vs rotation – Europe vs USA. The shot put world has for some years now been technically and geographically divided into two evenly balanced sides.

Statistically speaking, the US spinners have had a slight upper hand, but for major outdoor titles the balance has tipped in favour of the European gliders.

North American spinners Christian Cantwell, Dylan Armstrong, Reese Hoffa and Ryan Whiting have won all four (2010-2013) IAAF Diamond League series while four of the five latest global titles have gone to European gliders with Tomasz Majewski and David Storl winning two each.

This year Whiting was undisputedly the best as 10 of his 11 competitions were between 21.27m and 22.28m while world champion Storl had just one beyond 21.19m. But that meeting, of course, was the most important of all, the IAAF World Championships, where he threw 21.73m to Whiting’s 21.57m.